The present invention relates to improvements in and relating to surfboards and fittings therefor.
Surfboards typically consist of a fiberglass board having one or more fins (skegs) on the underside thereof at the tail end of the board.
To catch a wave requires a surfer to use the arms to manually paddle the board to build up speed so the board can accelerate down the wave and does not simply slip over the wave as it passes.
Understandably, getting your board up to the speed of the wave can be exhausting.
Additionally, it can make surfing difficult to those suffering from, or recovering from, arm injuries.
Previous attempts to address the foregoing problems all suffer from a number of drawbacks.
For example:
U.S. Pat. No. 8,702,458 discloses a fin with a motor therein. However, the motor is positioned directly adjacent the bottom surface of the surfboard. The inventor found that this arrangement to be unsatisfactory as it caused the motor to be inefficient and lack thrust as the motor is placed in the path of water disturbance (via air vortices/bubbles) formed as the board pushes carves through the water thus the placement of the motor in U.S. Pat. No. 8,702,458 undermines any useful benefits that the inclusion of a motor in the fin might otherwise have offered. Furthermore, the U.S. Pat. No. 8,702,458 invention requires modification of the board to create a housing for a power source which again alters the weight, feel and handling characteristics of the board.
US 20030167991 also discloses a motor in a fin for surfboard. But again this motor is positioned adjacent the bottom surface of the surfboard and thus prone to the same problems discussed above for U.S. Pat. No. 8,702,458. In addition, this motor projects from the rear of the fin meaning it can easily get tangled and caught up with the tether rope which can fit in the gap between the bottom of the surfboard and the top of the motor housing. This is understandably problematic. However, a major shortcoming in the US 20030167991 invention is the power supplied by the batteries and the position of the power source at the front end of the motor itself. The present inventor has found that you actually need around 97 W of power to provide 1 hour of continuous use of the motor. The NiCad batteries used in US 20030167991 would require around 12 batteries and the housing would project a long way (i.e. approximately 30 cm or more) forward of the front edge of the fin. This would affect the surfing performance of the surfboard.
Other motorised surfboards are known but they require a custom made surfboard with cavities therein for housing the motor and/or power source. Many of the motorised surfboard systems that exist today are not designed for wave powered surfing but more for artificially powered movement of the surfboard. Such systems thus detrimentally impact or prevent the ability to actually surf on a wave because the focus was on providing thrust to a board from a motor and requiring any board acceleration from a wave was not a consideration.
Despite the previous serious shortcomings of the motorised fins discussed above not working the inventor surprisingly found that a motorized fin could still be designed which could function in a manner that overcame the shortcomings and enabled surfers to catch waves. And importantly the motorised fin would still not detract from the overall surfing experience and feel of the board when surfing despite the addition of a motor to the fin and a long lasting power source to the board.
It is an object of the present invention to address the foregoing problems or at least to provide the public with a useful choice.
Additionally, it would also be useful if there could be provided a retrofit solution enabling a motorized fin to be easily added to and/or removed from, a standard surfboard without damaging the surfboard.
All references, including any patents or patent applications cited in this specification are hereby incorporated by reference. No admission is made that any reference constitutes prior art. The discussion of the references states what their authors assert, and the applicants reserve the right to challenge the accuracy and pertinency of the cited documents. It will be clearly understood that, although a number of prior art publications are referred to herein, this reference does not constitute an admission that any of these documents form part of the common general knowledge in the art, in New Zealand or in any other country.
Throughout this specification, the word “comprise”, or variations thereof such as “comprises” or “comprising”, will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated element, integer or step, or group of elements integers or steps, but not the exclusion of any other element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps.
Further aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the ensuing description which is given by way of example only.